Jamestown Pa

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
– Marcel Proust 

Back on the road people!!!  After nearly three weeks of visiting family and friends in the Detroit/Toledo area, and one week of school for me, Steve and I are once again gypsies (as my sister Carolyn calls us).  

Before I get to our latest adventure, let me just take a minute to say that we have the greatest family imaginable.  Our kids are just the coolest and our grandkids are more special than words can say.  We love them so much and can't wait until October when we will see them again.  Beyond our immediate family are our siblings and parents, who we also very much enjoyed spending time with.  It's hard to believe that it's been six months since we've seen them all and man, what a rush to be surrounded by them again.  Love you guys!  

Not to be forgotten was time with friends.  These people we haven't seen since last August so it was especially nice to catch up with them.  I had lunch with a bunch of my old Visteon peeps too, which was awesome.  They were such a great group of people to work with and reminiscing about old times and goofy things that we did was truly hilarious.  

Steve and I miss all of you and are so grateful for the colorful contributions you have made to our lives and for the things that we have learned from each of you.  Someone once said that you can tell the character of a person by the friends (and family) they have, and if that is true, then Steve and I are truly a couple of characters!!!!!  

Anyway, we left Toledo and headed to Pennsylvania.  We have been staying at Pymatuning State Park in Jamestown, PA.  What an awesome park and we highly recommend it to anyone in the greater Detroit/Toledo area as a destination for a family vacation.  The lake is huge and the park has a really nice beach.  The marina rents boats and there are also cabins that can be rented for weekly stays.   The past couple of weeks were really hectic for Steve and I so we chose to just chill here at Pymatuning.  And since we weren't always on the run, I had a chance to just sit and enjoy life in a campground.  Let me give you a visual:

I am sitting at our campfire and behind me is a beautiful orange/pink sunset.  A light breeze is blowing the scent of the neighbor's campfire my way.  I look a little to my left and there is a pontoon boat tooling by with some fisherpeople aboard.  I can hear country music from the campsite behind me and am watching a young family walking toward the beach, all four of which were holding hands.  Kids are playing games at the campsite across the street from me and the family at the campsite next to us is laughing about something.  There is a group of teenagers playing some kind of singing game which sounds really fun and warms my heart since, as we all know, teenagers are RARELY happy people.  Anyway, my point is that life is a full sensory experience.  So much happens around us everyday that we hardly ever take time to notice.  Once you have the chance to sit peacefully and just notice things, life can seem pretty good.  You don't have to be at a lovely campground to have this same experience.  Sit on your own front porch and take a moment to find the really cool things that surround you.  I bet you'll be surprised at how much you didn't notice before but suddenly find pretty interesting.

Alright, back to Pymatuning.  Steve and I visited a fish hatchery and the Linesville Spillway near here and watched people feed fish with bread.  Let me just say it was rather creepy.  Steve says it best - - "If bread were brains and these fish were zombies, this is what Armageddon would look like."  My granddaughter is especially fond of zombies, so she would have enjoyed that quote.  Check out the video of their feeding frenzy - - YUK!

Ok, we are headed to Coopers Rock State Forest in West Virginia for a few days and then on to meet up with Terry, Poopy (Jill), Rooney and Poopy's parents.  We cannot wait to see our kids again and especially our granddog, Rooney.  He is the sweetest pup and he loves his grandma.  We are also very excited to meet Jill's parents so that time with extended family will be very nice.

Take care peeps and it was good to have something to say again.  I apologize for the lack of pictures for this post but neither Steve nor I remembered to get the camera when we visited with our friends and family.  We need to get back into "camera-ready" mode, I guess. 

Love you all and to close, I share with you one of my favorite bumper stickers of all time - - 

Scenery is here, wish you were beautiful!

Later.